NEWS,29.10.2012

Hurricane Sandy - cocktail with a kick

Such a friendly sounding name on the surface, such a rare and devastating cocktail roiling within.You name it and Hurricane Sandy and the posse of titanic weather events accompanying it have them: humongous size, unusual staying power and plenty of high-tide sea water to wreak havoc, perhaps repeatedly, as the full moon and thus high tide roll in with exquisitely bad timing.Sandy already killed 66 people as it churned up from the Caribbean, ripping down houses and trees and wreaking other kinds of havoc in the Jamaica, Cuba and Haiti.But now, as it spins menacingly toward the US East Coast, with landfall expected late on Monday afternoon or Tuesday, it is morphing ominously into something else - from a tropical storm fuelled by warm sea water to a different kind of storm that runs on contrasts in temperature.Of that there is plenty. The core of Sandy is still tropical. But it is wrapped by cold air from a 'nor'easter coming from the north, by cold air coming from the jet stream to the west and by coldish air coming from the south.So Sandy is getting hit from all sides - streams of petrol fuelling a fire.And while most hurricanes tend to drift back east after making landfall, these powerful buffers will make it actually head west, inland, with forecasters saying it will even dump snow."These energetics are allowing it to maintain its strength," said Todd Kimberlain, a forecaster at the National Hurricane Center in Miami.Radar images showing the cowering US East Coast and the white, swirly mass of Sandy are indeed jaw-dropping.Allusions have been made to the so-called "Perfect Storm" of 1991, which inspired a book and a movie of the same name. Meteorologists say some of the same factors are converging this time but in a more fierce fashion, and with greater impact onshore and inland.Low pressureHurricane-force winds stretch out 289km from its core, and weaker, tropical-storm force winds go out a stunning distance of nearly 780km.That's due in part to the extremely low pressure at the core. The wind in a storm like this is caused by the pressure gradient - the difference in pressure at the eye and the edge.If somehow you could stand at the nucleus of Sandy, you would not gasp for breath or otherwise notice the difference, Kimberlain said. The pressure in mile-high Denver, Colorado, for instance  where the air is so thin it takes a few extra minutes of boiling to cook rice - the pressure is even lower.But because Sandy has such staying power, Kimberlain said, "once it hits the coast it will be at one of the lowest pressures on record."Then, there's all that water. The moon will ease into its full phase on Monday afternoon, and with it comes full tide on the eastern seaboard."Heaven and Earth may be aligning to turn Sandy into a real monster, just in time for Halloween," the climate-monitoring website Accuweather.com said on Monday.Storm surge Sandy's storm surge, forecast to cause coastal flooding of up to 2m in some states, like North Carolina, will be bad enough."But superimpose on top that the effect of the full tide and you get a couple extra cm," Kimberlain said.This is one of the most dangerous aspects of this storm, he said. Making matters worse, as Sandy is going to stick around for a few days, this coastal flooding could go through several tidal cycles.Some forecasters are tripping over each other with doomsday predictions."History is being written as an extreme weather event continues to unfold, one which will occupy a place in the annals of weather history as one of the most extraordinary to have affected the United States," senior meteorologist Stu Ostro of The Weather Channel wrote on Monday.He added: "This is an extraordinary situation, and I am not prone to hyperbole."

 

 

Warning of acute danger as hurricane edges closer

Hurricane Sandy has begun battering the densely populated East Coast of the US, shutting down transportation, forcing evacuations in flood-prone areas and interrupting the presidential campaign.Fierce winds and flooding were expected along hundreds of miles of Atlantic coast and heavy snows were forecast farther inland at higher elevations when the centre of the storm moves ashore on Monday evening near Atlantic City, New Jersey.US stock markets closed for the first time since the attacks of September 11, 2001, the government in Washington shut down and school was cancelled up and down the East Coast.About 150,000 customers were without power by midday  and millions more could lose electricity."This is going to be a big and powerful storm and all across the Eastern Seaboard I think everybody is taking the appropriate preparations," President Barack Obama said at the White House.States of emergency State governors from Virginia to Massachusetts warned of the acute danger from the storm for the 60 million residents in its path.Nine states have declared a state of emergency. Experts said economic losses from the storm could reach $US20 billion ($24bn)."There will undoubtedly be some deaths that are caused by the intensity of this storm, by the floods, by the tidal surge, by the waves.The more responsibly citizens act, the fewer people will die," Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley told reporters.Off North Carolina, the US Coast Guard rescued 14 of the 16 crew members who abandoned the replica tall ship HMS Bounty, using helicopters to lift them from life rafts.The Coast Guard continued to search for the two missing crew members. The US coastguard said the boat had reportedly sunk, though the mast was still visible.'Extremely dangerous' At 2pm Monday, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said the Category 1 storm had strengthened as it turned toward the coast and was moving at 44kph. Tropical storm force winds were already occurring over portions of the mid-Atlantic states, it said.The centre said landfall was "expected early this evening"."The combination of an extremely dangerous storm surge and the tide will cause normally dry areas near the coast to be flooded by rising waters," it said.Sandy was expected to bring a coastal hurricane winds and heavy snow in the Appalachian Mountains, the NHC said.In Fairfield, a Connecticut coastal town and major commuter point into Manhattan, police cruisers blocked the main road leading to the beaches and yellow police tape cordoned off rocky side entrances."People are definitely not taking this seriously enough," police officer Tiffany Barrett, 38, said. "Our worst fear is something like Katrina and we can't get to people."Some 400km to the south, several feet of water flooded streets in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, which could be right in the target zone of the storm.Police knocked on doors, reminding people there was a mandatory evacuation. While the police took names, they allowed residents to stay at their own risk.Rare 'super storm' Forecasters said Sandy was a rare, hybrid "super storm" created by an Arctic jet stream wrapping itself around a tropical storm.The combination of those two storms would have been bad enough, but meteorologists said there was a third storm at play  a system coming down from Canada that would effectively trap the hurricane-nor'easter combo and hold it in place, amplifying the inland flooding effects.Moreover, the storm was coming ashore at high tide, which was pulled even higher by a full moon.The storm interrupted the presidential campaign with eight days to the election.Obama canceled a campaign event in Florida on Monday so he could return to Washington and monitor the US government's response to the storm.Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney canceled campaign stops on Monday night and Tuesday.While Sandy does not pack the punch of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005, it has been gathering strength as it approaches the US coast.It killed 66 people in the Caribbean last week before pounding US coastal areas as it moved north.Winds were at a maximum of 150kph, the NHC said in its 2pm report, increasing throughout the day.Hurricane-force winds extended outward up to 280km from the centre, while tropical storm-force winds reached as far as 780km it said.Transit New York and other cities and towns closed their transit systems and schools, ordering mass evacuations from low-lying areas ahead of a storm surge that could reach as high as 3.4 metres.By early Monday water was already topping the seawall in Manhattan's Battery Park City, one of the areas evacuated by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.He ordered 375,000 New Yorkers to evacuate and told those who remained to leave immediately. "Conditions are deteriorating rapidly and the window for you getting out safely is closing."All US stock markets were closed on Monday and possibly Tuesday, the operator of the New York Stock Exchange said, reversing an earlier plan that would have kept electronic trading going on Monday.The United Nations, Broadway theaters and New Jersey casinos were forced to close, and more than two-thirds of the East Coast's oil refining capacity was in the process of shutting down.Airlines cancelled flights, bridges and tunnels closed, and national passenger rail operator Amtrak suspended nearly all service on the East Coast.The US government told non-emergency workers in Washington, DC, to stay home.The storms could cause up to 30cm of rain in some areas, as well as up to one metre of snowfall in the Appalachian Mountains from West Virginia to Kentucky.While Sandy's 150 kph winds were not overwhelming for a hurricane, its exceptional size means the winds could last as long as two days.

NY businesses hunker down, close for Sandy's arrival

They say that New York is the city that never sleeps, but throughout Manhattan today, it seemed as if many businesses were preparing to tuck in, perhaps for days.A monster of a hurricane - potentially the largest on record - was barreling toward the city, threatening business owners with catastrophic damages, biblical flooding and power outages that could last for days.In Times Square, restaurants, electronics shops and perfumeries were sending employees home before 7 pm, when the city's subways were set to close.It was the same throughout Midtown, along Madison Avenue and down into the Bohemian enclave of Greenwich Village, where many of famed Bleeker Street's shops were closing early - and indefinitely."After Monday, employees will be on call," said Jerome Ison, a clerk at Burberry.At Magnolia Bakery, the cupcakes shop made famous by the TV show "Sex and the City," the ovens were turned off around noon."We won't have any extra cupcakes," a worker said.Throughout Manhattan, the pretzel and hot dog vendors were packing up too, often to travel across bridges and tunnels to New Jersey, Brooklyn and Staten Island."Everybody's leaving," said peanut purveyor Miah Daras of the Bronx. "For me, this is losing $300 a day."The mad dash out of Manhattan was spurred by the shut down of mass transit today. The loss of transportation illustrated a socio-economic divide - there are many wealthy residents of Manhattan.Those who serve them tend to live elsewhere - the outer boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx.Without public transit, and with the possibility of bridges and tunnels being closed, cutting off vehicular traffic, those two populations were going to be apart from one another. And who knew for how long?"I need my workers to get home safely," said health food deli owner Gale Shim.Heavy rain, high winds Shim decided to stay behind and deal with the situation himself, meaning he'd bunk down in his deli. He had been hearing the news all week - 30cm of rain, 120km/h winds - though was happy he has insurance for food spoilage.But like a lot of New York business owners, it was the flooding that worried him. He stood in the back of the deli's kitchen, surrounded by cases of the hipster health drink Kombucha, and pointed to a place in the ceiling where rainwater routinely surges in.His plan was to fight off the expected deluge with a sump pump, though he didn't know what he would do if the electricity went out. He also hadn't figured out how to get a blanket if he got cold.On the Upper West Side, lines wrapped around the block at grocery store Trader Joe's. At Abingdon Deli, the cheese and meat shelves had been picked clean.Throughout the day, more and more closings were announced.But New Yorkers  who survived the September 11 attacks, a blackout in 2003 and Hurricane Irene last year can be hard to rattle. Some delighted in being contrarians.As many stocked their fridges with water and food, others blew the whole thing off."You know what I have in my fridge?" said Chris Conway, a 41-year-old who lives in the Chelsea section of Manhattan. "Four different kinds of Tabasco and one jar of A-1 steak sauce."There were also plenty of businesses that were daring the storm to bother them."We'll be open, no matter what," said Clarence Ricketts, who manages the 24-hour Walgreens at Times Square. The building has its own in-house engineer, a military-grade power generator and a full staff in the store.Ricketts will pay for cab fare if an employee needs to go home, but he's cleared out space in the store's fifth-floor offices and has air mattresses for workers."We sell air mattresses," he said. "So however many workers need, we have."One business that storms treat positively well  bars.Downtown Manhattan's Corner Bistro was full today. The Bistro, legendary for its salty bartenders and tender burgers, stayed open throughout Hurricane Irene.During the 2003 blackout, one manager tried to close the bar - and was fired."The Bistro only closes on Thanksgiving and Christmas, and that's it," said bartender Jeff Sheehan.Justice never rests While Hurricane Sandy may shut down much of the federal government and halt public transport in Washington DCtomorrow, it will be business as usual at the US Supreme Court, where justices - appointed for life - pride themselves in all manner of staying power.The country's highest court is keeping to its oral-argument schedule and intends to hear cases through Wednesday, court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said today."It was the decision of the chief justice, in consultation with court officials," Arberg said, in a reference to Chief Justice John Roberts, who was appointed in 2005.There is a tradition to this. In 1996, when a major snowstorm closed the federal government and brought Washington DC, to a near standstill, court arguments went on. Then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist, a Wisconsin native undeterred by snow and ruled by a strong sense of punctuality, made sure business that January 8 began on schedule.Roberts, 57, who grew up in Indiana, was once a law clerk to Rehnquist, who died in 2005.The justices are starting their second two-week round of arguments for the annual term, beginning tomorrow with a foreign intelligence wiretap case and a copyright dispute. Non-emergency federal workers have been told to stay home.Arberg said court officials would be monitoring the hurricane to determine whether safety factors might require a change in the schedule. Two cases are scheduled for each of the following two days.During the January 1996 snowstorm, court officials picked up some of the justices in four-wheel-drive vehicles. Seven of the nine arrived on time for the 10 am opening session. Justice David Souter eventually made it to the bench that Monday.Justice John Paul Stevens, who was in Florida at the time, did not. Both have since retired.Arberg said she was unaware of any justices who would not make it in on Monday.

Obama: Hurricane Sandy Will Be 'Big And Powerful,' But We're Ready

President Barack Obama on Monday expressed confidence that his administration is prepared to take on Hurricane Sandy and said he's not concerned about the impact it will have on the elections.During brief remarks at the White House, Obama said he has been working with the Departments of Energy, Transportation, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services to coordinate for what is "obviously" going to be a "big and powerful storm." He said the center of the storm is expected to make landfall along the East Coast on Monday night. But because of its size, millions of people across the country will be affected, particularly when it comes to power outages and transportation."The most important message that I have for the public right now is, 'Please listen to what your state and local officials are saying,'' Obama said. "When they tell you to evacuate, you need to evacuate. Do not delay. Don't pause. Don't question the instructions being given because this is a serious storm and could potentially have fatal consequences."Obama gave his remarks right after coming out of a Situation Room briefing on the storm. Among those in the meeting, via video teleconference, were Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, FEMA administrator Craig Fugate, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Energy Secretary Chu and National Hurricane Center Director Richard Knabb.The president emphasized that he has been working with state and local officials to ensure everybody has the resources they need, including food, water and electricity generators."At this point, there are no unmet needs," Obama said. Straddling the line between his presidency and his candidacy for reelection, Obama added that "the great thing about America" is that people pull together in tough times. "We set aside whatever issues we may have otherwise to respond appropriately and with swiftness, and that's exactly what I anticipate is going to happen here."Asked by a reporter if he is worried about the storm affecting the election, he said no."I am not worried at this point about the impact on the election. I am worried about the impact on families. I am worried about the impact on our firstresponders. I am worried about the impact on our economy and on transportation," Obama said. "The election will take care of itself next week."

NEWS,23.10.2012

Presidential Election: Obama, Romney Race To Finish Line

 

With just two weeks until Election Day, President Barack Obama on Tuesday began a cross-country rush to hold onto office in tough economic times with a new booklet outlining his second-term agenda and a closing argument that the choice comes down to trust.The president emerged from the last of his debates with Republican Mitt Romney fueled by a rush of adrenaline matched by thousands of boisterous supporters who filled the outdoor Delray Tennis Center to hear him speak. The crowd repeatedly interrupted Obama's 22-minute speech with applause and chants of "four more years" that drowned out his remarks.Obama, with sleeves rolled up, held up a copy of the full-color, 20-page "Blueprint for America's Future" that his campaign planned to distribute across the country  a booklet that offered a repackaging of his ideas in response to GOP criticism that he hasn't clearly articulated a plan for the next four years. He argued that voters want to know what a presidential candidate will fight for and said Romney isn't offering a clear vision."We joke about Romnesia," Obama said, a reference to his joke that his challenger has a habit of vacillating positions. "But you know what? This actually is something important. This is about trust. There is no more serious issue in a presidential campaign than trust."Neither side can claim the lead at this late stage with polls showing a neck-and-neck race nationally and in some of the key swing states. Obama's challenge is to convince voters who may be hurting financially that he is better qualified to lead the country back to economic prosperity than Romney, who made a fortune as a successful businessman."Florida, you know me," Obama said. "You can trust that I say what I mean and I mean what I say. And yes, we've been through tough times. But you've never seen me quit."Both campaigns predicted victory, trying to ward off worries among the supporters they need to get to the polls. "In two weeks, a majority of Americans will choose Gov. Romney's positive agenda over President Obama's increasingly desperate attacks," said Romney spokesman Ryan Williams in a statement responding to the president's Florida rally.Obama senior strategist David Axelrod said he was confident Obama would win and that Americans soon will know who's been bluffing in their dueling declarations of victory. "We have the ball, we have the lead," Axelrod told reporters on a conference call.Axelrod said the campaign was printing 3.5 million copies of his second-term agenda to reach the "small universe" of voters who haven't made up their minds. The booklet, which they plan to distribute at events and campaign offices across the country, outlines the president's plans to improve education, boost manufacturing jobs, enhance U.S.-made energy, reduce the federal deficit and raise taxes on the wealthy.Romney policy director Lanhee Chen responded that Obama was trying to fool people into thinking he has new ideas when all he's offering is more of the same plans that Chen said have been ineffective. "A glossy pamphlet two weeks before an election is no substitute for a real agenda for America. As much as President Obama might try, you can't gloss over four years like the last four," Chen wrote in a memo.Obama also touted economic gains in a new 60-second television advertisement in which he speaks directly to the camera about his plans for a second term. The ad will air in the nine states whose electoral votes are still considered up for grabs – New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nevada and Colorado.Those states were sure to see a burst of activity in visits from the two campaigns, political commercials and voter mobilization in the race that's likely to cost upward of $2 billion by the time it all ends. Obama campaigned Tuesday in Florida and was headed to Ohio, while Romney's campaign plane taxied past Air Force One on Tuesday morning as he headed West to Nevada and Colorado.With 270 electoral votes needed for victory, Obama at this point appears on track to win 237 while Romney appears to have 191. The other 110 electoral votes are in the hotly contested battleground states.Asked Tuesday whether the race comes down to Ohio, Virginia and Florida as some observers have suggested, Vice President Joe Biden described the three as "critically important." He predicted victory in Ohio and Florida without mentioning Virginia."Look, this is going to be close," Biden said on NBC's "Today." "We always knew at the end of the day this was going to be a close race, no matter who the Republicans nominated."After Obama and Biden campaign together in Ohio, the president splits off on what his campaign is describing as a two-day "around-the-clock" blitz to six more battleground states. He'll be in constant motion making voter calls and sleeping aboard Air Force One as he flies overnight Wednesday from Nevada to Tampa, Fla.The vice president is midway through a three-day tour of uber-battleground Ohio, and Obama's team contends its best way of ensuring victory is a win there. The campaign says internal polling gives Obama a lead in the Midwestern battleground state, in large part because of the popularity of the president's bailout of the auto industry.But even if Obama loses Ohio, his campaign sees another pathway to the presidency by nailing New Hampshire, Iowa, Wisconsin, Nevada and Colorado.Romney and running mate Paul Ryan are picking up their pace of campaigning, too, and their schedule reflects an overarching strategy to drive up GOP vote totals in areas already friendly to the Republican nominee.Romney and Ryan start their two-week dash in Henderson, Nev., then hopscotch to the Denver area for a rally with rocker-rapper Kid Rock and country music's Rodney Atkins at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Then Romney heads back to Nevada, on to Iowa and then east to Ohio for three overnights in a row.The state is critical to both campaigns, and economic concerns rank high. Ryan aides already were looking ahead to a Wednesday speech at Cleveland State University as a chance to tout what a Romney administration would mean for middle-class voters and those struggling to get by. Ryan aides said he will argue that those stuck in poverty cannot afford four more years like Obama's first term and that Romney offers better a pathway to improve their lives through opportunity and upward mobility, including school choice and public-private partnerships.Romney plans to return to Florida by week's end, before a significant uptick in his schedule during the final week of the campaign. Aides say he'll touch down in two or three states a day, or hold that many daily events in big states like Florida.Both sides are working furiously to lock down every possible early vote, and the results are evident in the 4.4 million people who've already cast ballots. Obama will detour to Chicago on Thursday to make a statement about voting early by becoming the first president to cast his own early ballot."Every single day right now is Election Day," Obama campaign manager Jim Messina told reporters on a conference call outlining their strategy to win the race.Neither candidate scored a knockout punch in Monday's third and final debate, as both men reined in the confrontational sniping that had marked their previous testy encounter. The topic was foreign policy, and Romney went in to the debate with a key piece of advice from his aides: talk about peace in an appeal to independent voters, particularly women, who are weary of more than a decade of war. "I want to see peace," Romney said in his closing argument.Romney's campaign produced a new television commercial overnight using debate footage of the him lecturing Obama for going on an "apology tour" of Middle East nations while never visiting Israel as president.

The Foreign Policy Debate 2012 and Grand Strategy

 

Monday's presidential debate focused on foreign policy. Rarely do such debates actually refer to a grand strategy, instead talking about crises and countries piecemeal. The audience is left to infer a strategy if there is one. Below, I'll first sketch out the strategy options and then attempt to place the candidates' views into that framework.There are only a handful of grand strategies available to the United States in the twenty-first century. In their classic forms, one or another of them has been employed since the eighteenth century. They were updated in a spirited debate after the end of the Cold War, and recent efforts have added little if anything. We will be choosing one when we vote in the presidential elections.Grand strategies are generally categorized as being either realist or idealist. The realist strategies elevate the state over international institutions, and they focus on state acquisition and use of power in pursuit of national interests. The idealist strategies--pursuing an ideal not currently in existence--see security as a shared responsibility and favor working through international institutions. The strategies differ in how they distinguish between vital and peripheral interests, on the threshold for military intervention, and on whether aggressive foreign policy creates more problems than it solves.Classic isolationism has three components defining the U.S. role in the world: (1) nonintervention with military force, (2) restrictive, nationalistic trade policy including protective tariffs, and (3) restrictive immigration policies. Isolationists tend to see aggressive foreign policy as causing threats to national security rather than solving them. Isolationism defines vital interests very narrowly and sets a very high threshold for military intervention.Isolationism was the preferred strategy from the birth of the nation until WWI.How much is enough? Isolationists accept the need for defensive power, military power sufficient to defend the homeland, and little else. Today's neo-isolationists might argue for a nuclear deterrent, a force to defend the borders, and a conventional force concentrated in the National Guard and Reserve for those once-in-a-generation mobilizations to protect narrowly defined vital interests, survival.Classic collective security is premised on the idea that states pursuing power advantage led to the world wars. Idealists believed that states pursuing selfish interests and aggregating power through secret treaties led to power imbalances and war. Instead, idealists believed that preventing war was a collective responsibility. They hoped to (1) establish a pattern of international cooperation on global issues through international institutions, (2) establish a pattern of great power intervention, even when their vital interests are not threatened, that would eventually deter aggressive wars, and they (3) favored free trade and refuted the "beggar-thy-neighbor" nationalistic, protectionist trade policies they believed had led to major wars.Woodrow Wilson attempted collective security after WWI through the League of Nations but was overruled by a Republican Senate that retained a preference for isolationism. Roosevelt attempted collective security after WWII through the United Nations and was more successful. Truman entered Korea under a UN resolution and without congressional authorization.The Clinton administration updated collective security to something called cooperative security. A greater emphasis was placed on preventing countries from acquiring (not just using) power sufficient to wage aggressive war against neighbors. The strategy called for military intervention to prevent states from acquiring potent conventional and nuclear forces.How much is enough? Cooperative security requires a military force sufficient to defend the homeland, ensure U.S. vital interests, and an additional force to contribute to international efforts. Cooperative security defines vital interests very broadly and sets a low threshold for military intervention.Professor Robert Art coined the term "selective engagement" at the end of the Cold War. It can be seen as a specific version of a classic balance of power strategy. It shares the isolationist belief that an aggressive foreign policy creates threat and the belief that states balance against power, but it differs believing that the U.S. must remain engaged internationally. Thus the name, selective engagement--stay engaged internationally but be very selective in the use of force. Professor Christopher Layne offered an even more restrictive strategy called offshore balancing with the U.S. in the role of balancer of last resort. Art's strategy forward deploys a larger force than Layne's. These strategies set a higher threshold for intervention than collective security but a lower threshold than isolationism. They shift the burden from direct military intervention to coercive diplomacy. When vital interests are threatened, the U.S. will not be alone. For example, threats to the flow of cheap oil from the Middle East threaten all oil-dependent countries. Based on shared national interests, power can be aggregated into a coalition of the willing sufficient to balance against the threat.Alexander Hamilton favored a strategy with the U.S. balancing between France and Great Britain without permanent allegiance to either.Interventionist presidents Truman, Johnson, and Bush 43 were followed by presidents elected to end wars. And Eisenhower, Nixon, and Obama all tended toward some form of balancing and selective engagement. Following the end of the Cold War, Bush 41 appeared to be moving in that same direction. Both the president's national security strategy document and JCS Chairman Powell's national military strategy document were in line with Layne's strategy. Troops would return home and forward presence would be reestablished through temporary rotations of forces as long practiced by Navy and Marine forces. Iraq invaded Kuwait the day the president was to announce the new strategy. The speech was never given and the strategy never implemented. The successful eviction of Iraq from Kuwait under UN authority instead encouraged a new optimism for collective security or something closer to Art's selective engagement.How much is enough? A selective engagement strategy would require enough force to defend the homeland and a war winning force to defend somewhat narrowly defined vital interests. Forces include a nuclear deterrent, a standoff capability to support coercive diplomacy and a balancing force to tip the scales when only peripheral interests are threatened, and a war winning conventional force organized, trained, and equipped to deter, and if necessary defeat, a military threat to vital interests. A significant portion of the forward deployed Cold War force would be redeployed to the U.S. Like isolationism, there would be a greater reliance on the National Guard and Reserves.The last strategy is often referred to as primacy or hegemonic primacy. It, too, has a classic version and a post-Cold War update. Under this strategy a state wishing to maintain its dominant position must have a preponderance of power rather than defensive or balancing power. It is a strategy followed by past great powers like Great Britain and Rome.An example is provided by proposals to determine the necessary size of the old British Navy. A two-power standard was adopted in 1889 and a three-power standard in 1902. That is, the number of capital ships should exceed the next two or three largest navies--a preponderance of power at sea. The U.S. currently spends more on its military than the next 14 countries combined--a 14-power military based on cost. That's nearly 40 percent of worldwide expenditures.The modern version of primacy came in response to the end of the Cold War to preserve the unipolar moment. The primary threat to U.S. security was seen as the rise of a peer or near-peer competitor. Primacy rejects the established theory that states balance against power and replaces it with the belief that states balance against threatening power. The challenge, then, is to maintain the preponderance of power while being seen as a benign hegemon. By the benign extension of global security, no other power need enter into an arms race to challenge U.S. primacy.The Bush 43 administration campaigned on selective engagement but shifted to a form of primacy after 9/11 and quickly went beyond primacy. The U.S. forced regime change in Iraq after failing to receive UN authorization was not interpreted as the behavior of a benign hegemon. Rather than primacy's objective of preserving the unipolar moment, the beyond primacy strategy sought to exploit the unipolar moment to forcefully spread democracy without the risk of provoking conflict with a competing superpower.How much is enough? The force must be sized to assure global security. Primacy, like all the alternatives, requires a nuclear deterrent. Like collective security, and unlike isolationism, it requires a war-winning conventional force on active duty. Like collective security, the force is likely to be consistently engaged around the world rather than standing at the ready as under selective engagement.Some argue that there is little difference between cooperative security and primacy. They share the belief that international activism reduces threats to U.S. national security. One has an initial preference for acting through established international institutions like the UN but will act unilaterally if the institution is uncooperative. The other has an initial preference for acting unilaterally but will accept the contributions of a coalition of the willing. One pursues diplomatic solutions before resorting to military force while the other is quicker to intervene militarily. Both rely on preponderance of power. Both strategies include the option for discretionary, preventive war.No presidential administration will be entirely consistent with any of these strategies. The world is too complex, and these are only thumbnail sketches of strategies. But administrations generally exhibit a central tendency toward one strategy or another. A vigorous scholarly debate took place after the Cold War came to a close, but scholars don't make policy; elected and appointed officials make policy. Among policy makers, isolationism is a dismissive, pejorative term, and it is a label applied to neo-isolationists and inaccurately applied to those advocating selective engagement. These more restrictive strategies have greater appeal with a war-weary electorate in hard economic times.Obama has demonstrated a tendency towards selective engagement, perhaps acting as balancer of last resort. Romney has no record to evaluate, but his forming national security team is dominated by primacy advocates from the Bush 43 administration. There is, however, at least one important adviser that comes from the selective engagement camp. You most likely will be choosing between selective engagement and primacy strategies when you vote in November.Everything above was written before the debate. It was my intention to attempt an evenhanded placement of the two candidates in the context of the grand strategies presented above based on their debate statements. It was pretty tough to do, but I could see some subtle differences that are better explained with the material I developed in an earlier article on burden sharing.First, professionals think in terms of four distinct expressions of grand strategy. (1) Declaratory policy is what we'll say we'll do. (2) Employment policy is what we actually do with our force. (3) Deployment policy is where we position our forces to reflect our strategic priorities. And (4) force development policy is what force we maintain and what force we are developing. Declaratory policy is talk, very important talk, and that's all we have from the debate. Let's be fair, both candidates can talk, but only the incumbent president has a record on the other three expressions of strategy. If I had only one chance to characterize the difference between the two is that they agreed on many objectives, but Romney wanted quicker progress toward those objectives.I heard from both a little bit of the protectionism from the isolationist strategy. That's understandable given tough economic times. Obama talked more about working through international institutions characteristic of collective security, but not much. Romney hinted at less interest in working through the UN based on the blocking tactics of Russia. Both talked of inhibiting the spread of nuclear weapons, but that's characteristic of multiple strategies.The question about responding to the conflict in Syria revealed a bit of daylight between the two. Obama expressed greater resistance to involvement limiting engagement to diplomatic efforts and providing humanitarian assistance. Romney expressed a preference for arming insurgents but expressedan understanding that we don't really understand the various factions. I think the distinction is best explained in my article on revolutions rather than this article on grand strategy.The other distinction between the two candidates is best explained in the article on burden sharing. Again, Obama has employment policy to evaluate, and Romney doesn't. Obama has been consistent in his position on burden sharing in Tunisia, Egypt, Iran, Libya, and Syria. He said the Syrian people must bear the primary burden. We have only declaratory policy from Romney. In general, there wasn't much light between the two. And, in general, Romney expressed only one increment more aggressive behavior than Obama.As for deployment policy, Obama has drawn down forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and is shifting freed resources to the Pacific. Romney expressed no specifics in this regard.There were more easily identified differences between the two on force development policy. Romney proposes a much greater investment in growing the force. Military expenditures have been reasonably stable, with annual increases, under Obama. Romney proposed an increase in expenditures considerably greater than has been requested by the military.I'm disappointed that I didn't learn much, and I have to stick with my pre-debate guess. Obama's strategy is most closely aligned with selective engagement and a high threshold for direct military intervention as evidenced by four years in office. Romney expressed a somewhat lower threshold for military intervention, not much, as evidenced only in speech. The key is in the advice that will be provided by Romney's national security team and Romney's response to that advice.

Best wishes in your voting.

Obama Handily Wins Third Debate

 

Tonight's third Presidential debate featured a battle between Obama the Professor-in-Chief vs. Romney the student-who-didn't-do-the-reading. As someone who has ADD, even I had trouble keeping up with many of Governor Romney's non-linear arguments. Indeed, Romney's desperation to hit all of his talking points and critiques at all costs came at the expense of appearing Presidential. Presidents and leaders don't just critique problems they offer specific solutions on how to fix them in that regard, Obama handily won. Romney clearly can memorize the talking points Dan Senor and John Bolton feed him -- hence his obsession with Israel and Iran but they all need to look at a map, because last time I checked Iran has a whole ocean border with the Indian Ocean (I'm still not sure how Syria is Iran's path to the sea). Also, a pre-emptive attack on Iran will do nothing but unite the Iranian people with the Ayatollah's for at least another generation Obama gets that, Romney scarily does not. The last thing America or the planet needs is an American war with Iran. While Governor Romney clearly wanted to use Israel against President Obama as much as possible, the President's story about visiting the Holocaust memorial and shelled Israeli cities while Romney held fundraisers was one of the most poignant and moving moments of the debate. In fact, I'd argue too much time was spent on Israel and Iran and not nearly enough on what I think will be the single most important foreign and economic policy development of the 21st century -- the emergence of the Chinese middle class. The day China's middle class can replace the US middle class as consumers is the day China no longer needs to fund our debt. President Obama at least attempted to talk about long-term competitiveness of American labor via improved education standards because we need to be able to make things better and cheaper than everyone else. Sadly, neither man offered up enough specifics on policies that the US could enact to protect the American economy from the loss of China's investment. Now is the time to solve our coming China problem not 10-20 years from now when China decides it no longer needs us to buy its goods to keep its economy growing. . I found it striking that Afghanistan got such little mention (in comparison to Iran and Israel) as we still have just under 100,000 troops in Afghanistan. Once again, neither candidate acknowledged the truth about American involvement in Afghanistan that we will remain in combat in Afghanistan potentially until 2024. Governor Romney absolutely incorrectly screwed up when he said we will be finished in Afghanistan in 2014. America signed a treaty to train the Afghan Security Forces till 2024. Combat won't stop simply because we bring home "combat troops" (i.e. the 82nd Airborne, 101st Airborne, etc...). I was an adviser to the Afghan Security Forces, I got shot at on my 13th day in country and many days thereafter and yet I wasn't technically a "combat troop" the same will happen to our advisers for the next ten years. Sadly, the conversation of Pakistan was also too limited. Pakistan is the most dangerous country on the planet (a state sponsor of terrorism, Osama Bin Laden's last sanctuary, and the greatest proliferator of nuclear weapons and material on the planet). The US-Pakistan alliance has essentially collapse over the last decade and yet neither candidate offered specifics on how to fix that relationship. The US must find a way to keep Pakistan from falling apart or Afghanistan and Iraq will look like a cakewalk. Also, what happened to Europe? Their economy is on the verge of collapsing and could take ours with it yet not a single mention during the debate.I enjoyed the discussion of Syria but I still can't find a difference in either candidate's policy towards the conflict. Indeed, while neither candidate wants to commit the US militarily to Syria, this probably is not possible esp. if the conflict expands to Turkey and Jordan, our staunchest allies in the Middle East. I had hoped both men would have offered specifics on how to address the growing regional war in the Levant. I found the limited conversation of US drone attacks frustrating and supremely disappointing. Lethal drone strikes have become the weapon de jure of the war on terror and could actually move people (i.e. the children of the killed) towards terrorism in the future I found President Obama's acknowledgement that we need to move people away from terrorism refreshing, but to do that, we actually need to expand literacy as literacy increases the access to the marketplace of ideas. We need to prevent today's children from becoming tomorrow's terrorists, but to do that, we'll likely have far greater success with words, not drones.Had I been Mitt Romney's debate coach, I would have had him congratulate President Obama off the bat for getting Bin Laden. Such a move would have come across as magnanimous and would have taken the bite out of President Obama's forceful narrative on what it means to be a President: "When we bring those who have harmed us to justice that sends a message to the world...because that's the kind of clarity of leadership that a President must make." Conversely, I would have never have allowed Romney to call himself a son of Detroit who's father ran a car company. Most sons of Detroit and their fathers worked the line and not in the board room. Romney continued to come across as out of touch with the American middle class. A point further exacerbated by the President's criticisms of Romney's business practices that helped send many of those Detroit jobs to China. Indeed, it took three debates, but President Obama finally pointed out that Romney helped pioneer outsourcing to China. President Obama came across the most Presidential and coherent when he tied the ending of the Iraq war with increased resources for fixing things at home and taking care of our veterans. As a veteran, I applaud the President for taking the time to acknowledge the need to take care of our veterans a point Romney did not make once in all three debates. President Obama continues to be the most culturally in-tune President in modern American history. His use of David Spade throw away line "The 1980's called and want their foreign policy back" was simultaneously hysterical and powerful. Even more poignant were President Obama's statements regarding the changing nature of warfare, especially the "we used to have horses and bayonets" line. President Obama's correctly asserted that warfare changes and evolves to demand new weapons and tactics a lesson that sadly many politicians and US government officials never learn. For example, the US military spent billions of dollars on the F-22, an aircraft designed to fight Soviet MiGs but now finds itself unused as we face enemies who fight with IEDs and small unit ambushes. We can no longer afford to learn the lessons of the last war during the first moments of the next one. Finally, thank God President Obama acknowledged that we all hate campaign ads a sentiment with which I'm confident all Americans can agree.

NEWS,22.10.2012

Iran Policy and the 50th Anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis

The unrepentant neo-cons and backbenchers on Mitt Romney's foreign policy team, such as Dan Senor and Cofer Black, always advise their candidate to attack signs of "weakness" coming from President Obama. The Administration's announcement of direct talks between the U.S. and Iran should be welcomed as good news by those who don't wish to see yet another bloodbath in the Middle East but Romney can be counted on to condemn the diplomatic breakthrough as insufficiently hawkish. The news that Obama has chosen dialogue over saber-rattling gives Romney the opportunity to vent his criticism at the sole foreign policy debate that falls on the 50th anniversary of the night when President John F. Kennedy first made public the existence of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. Fifty years ago, President Kennedy, after being informed that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev had deployed intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Cuba, was able to move beyond his knee jerk reaction to bomb and invade the island. Fortunately, over the course of days Kennedy tempered his response by adding statesmanship to his brinkmanship. The idea of bombing Cuba followed by a ground invasion was sidelined in favor of more incremental pressures: seeking multilateral assistance while enforcing a Naval "quarantine" of Soviet vessels to give negotiations more time.As the United States tries to assess the danger of Iran becoming a nuclear power the lessons of JFK's dealing with the Soviets over the change in the nuclear status quo is more relevant than ever.The bluster and war mongering of repeating the mantra "all options are on the table" needlessly heightens tensions and makes war more likely if it is not accompanied by face-saving ways out of the crisis. The U.S.'s adversary du jour, (in this case the fallible clerics who run the Islamic Republic of Iran), typically do not respond well to military threats of air strikes, "red lines," or "axis of evil" rhetoric (thank you David Frum). These kinds of intimidating tactics coming from a nuclear power that can lay waste to Iran, although favored by the neo-cons who brought us the disastrous war in Iraq, if devoid of any links to a pathway out of the confrontation amount to little more than bullying and belligerence. In the case of Iran, the threat of "the use of force" after years of George W. Bush's calamitous policies in the region do nothing to dissuade the Ayatollahs from continuing their nuclear enrichment program.Iran remains a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which has safeguards and allowances for the civilian uses of nuclear power. The best U.S. intelligence analyses conclude that Iran is not building an atomic bomb. If President Kennedy could offer an off-ramp from disaster to Nikita Khrushchev, who was at the time the U.S.'s most bombastic ideological foe who possessed a nuclear arsenal big enough to do serious damage, then a sitting U.S. president today can give Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (a far weaker adversary) a similar face-saving way out of the current "crisis." Through secret backchannels, Kennedy offered Khrushchev sweeteners in the form of offering to remove the U.S.'s Jupiter missiles from Turkey and pledging not to invade the island in exchange for the Soviets agreeing to take their missiles out of Cuba. Any public ultimatum ("red line") against Iran absent of private offers of concessions amounts to nothing more than war mongering. A wiser policy toward Iran more akin to the one Kennedy applied to Cuba during the missile crisis would be to take the military option "off the table," quiet down the noise level from actors in the U.S. and in the region (such as Bibi Netanyahu) who are screaming for a war, and deal with Iran on terms of mutual respect and a realist recognition of shared interests. This dual-track policy appears to be where President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton are heading. It is the only policy that can defuse the "crisis." There is no military solution. Let's not forget that in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks Iran offered to help the United States track down Al Qaeda and has assisted in stemming the drug traffic out of Afghanistan. And let's also not forget that the Reagan Administration armed the government of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the mid-1980s in an attempt (according to Reagan) to open up a "dialogue." And let's not further forget that it was the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency that in August 1953 overthrew the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mossadegh and installed the Shah Reza Pahlavi. The CIA coup d'état, organized from within the U.S. embassy in Tehran, re-wrote that nation's history denying Iran in the early 1950s what might be called today a "Persian Spring." There has never been an adequate American acknowledgement that the U.S. was responsible for propping up a dictatorship in Iran under the Shah for 25 years, which set the stage for the 1979 revolution that brought the clerics to power in the first place. The recent history of American-Iranian relations, which has been a lengthy series of underhanded and failed policies, must be taken into account. A little humility on the American side could go a long way.In October 1962, President Kennedy's sobering experience during the missile crisis led directly to his American University speech of June 1963 where he called for an end to the demonization and brinkmanship of the Cold War. The crisis also put the Atmospheric Test-Ban Treaty on the front burner of his priorities and Kennedy spent considerable political "capital" in prodding the U.S. Senate to ratify the treaty. Had Kennedy decided to bomb and invade Cuba it would have been popular with the hardliners around him and with American public opinion. But it is also highly likely that one of the 98 tactical nuclear bombs on the island would have been detonated over the heads of U.S. marines. (There had been good cause for politicians and other residents of Washington to begin readying bunkers and bomb shelters.) On October 22, 1962, in announcing the existence of the missiles President Kennedy chillingly told the world that any detonation of a nuclear device in the Western Hemisphere would be considered "an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union." Yet he understood that Khrushchev would have to brush back the hardliners inside his own government. Imposing a U.S. Navy "quarantine" of Soviet ships heading for Cuba and bringing in the United Nations and allies to help find a way out of the crisis was the least pugnacious of the military options and it bought time for negotiations. Robert F. Kennedy was sent as his brother's emissary to privately talk to the Kremlin-connected journalist, Georgi Bolshakov, and to Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin. The U.S. offered to dismantle its Jupiter missiles in Turkey and agreed not to try to topple the Castro regime. In late 1963, Kennedy even sent out feelers to the Cuban government that normalizing U.S. relations might be a possibility if Castro agreed to certain conditions, such as limiting the Soviet military presence. Although these efforts were cut short by Kennedy's assassination they illustrate that he was willing to make substantial concessions and push against the Cold War orthodoxy of the period that took as gospel that the Soviets only respected threats of massive violence.With the ongoing partisan attacks against President Obama when facing challenges in a more complicated world than existed a half century ago, along with his ill-advised escalation of drone attacks that only increase tensions and create new enemies, the last thing this country needs is to blunder itself into another misguided war. What's needed when dealing with Iran and its nuclear program is the cautious pragmatism and willingness to bend and make concessions that characterized President Kennedy's strategy 50 years ago.During the missile crisis the United States and the Soviet Union sidelined regional actors who called for military actions that would be in nobody's interest (including those demanding it). And like the crisis of 1962 the tensions with Iran in 2012 can be lessened with a greater willingness to compromise, the offering of concessions, and a recognition that war will only bring added misery and hardship to the people in that part of the world who have already endured enough. Romney will no doubt go on the offensive against Obama's new Iran initiative decrying it as "weak" and not aligned with his neo-con proclivities. The Right's echo chamber will denounce the timing of the announcement of talks with Iran as an "October Surprise." But we mustn't allow their shrill, politicized whining about sensible diplomatic overtures drown out the crucial need for a peaceful resolution of the conflict. Unfortunately, neither candidate today could make the kind of speech that President Kennedy delivered in June 1963 without enduring considerable political fallout. Kennedy said in his American University address: "History teaches us that enmities between nations, as between individuals, do not last forever. However fixed our likes and dislikes may seem, the tide of time and events will often bring surprising changes in the relations between nations and neighbors. So let us persevere. Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable. By defining our goal more clearly, by making it seem more manageable and less remote, we can help all people to see it, to draw hope from it, and to move irresistibly towards it... For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's futures. And we are all mortal .We shall  do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are just. We are not helpless before that task or hopeless of its success. Confident and unafraid, we must labor on not towards a strategy of annihilation but towards a strategy of peace."

 

Romney and Obama in last chance debate

President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney face off in front of the cameras for a final time this afternoon as opinion polls show their battle for the White House has tightened to a dead heat.With 15 days to go until the November 6 election, the two candidates turn to foreign policy for their third and last debate.The stakes are high. The two candidates are tied at 46% each in the Reuters/Ipsos online daily tracking poll, and the debate will likely be the last time either candidate will be able to directly appeal to millions of voters.Though few voters cite the war in Afghanistan or other national-security topics as a top concern, Obama can point to a number of successes on his watch, from the end of the Iraq war to the killing of Osama bin Laden.Romney will use worries about the prospect of a nuclear Iran and turmoil in Libya to try to amplify concerns about Obama's leadership at home and abroad."Many voters are ready to fire Obama if they see Romney as an acceptable alternative," said David Yepsen, director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Center at Southern Illinois University."Foreign policy has not been a big driver of this campaign but I think Romney could add some icing to his cake if people say, 'Hey, this guy is on top of world affairs.'"Impact of debates Presidential debates have not always been consequential, but this year they have had an impact.Romney's strong performance in the first debate in Denver on October 3 helped him recover from a series of stumbles and wiped out Obama's advantage in opinion polls.Obama fared better in their second encounter on October 16, but that has not helped him regain the lead.The Obama campaign is now playing defense as it tries to limit Romney's gains in several of the battleground states that will decide the election.Romney could have a hard time winning the White House if he does not carry Ohio, and a new Quinnipiac/CBS poll shows Obama leading by 5 percentage points in the Midwestern state.Last-chance More than 60 million viewers watched each of their previous two debates, but the television audience this time could be smaller as it will air at the same time as high-profile baseball and football games.Much of the exchange, which takes place at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida, will likely focus on the Middle East. Other topics such as trade with China and the debt crisis in Europe could allow the candidates to circle back to the economic concerns that are topmost on voters' minds.Campaigning in Canton, Ohio, Vice President Joe Biden on Monday reminded voters of Obama's pledge to pull troops out of Afghanistan in the next two years and pointed out that Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan have made no such guarantees."They said, quote, it depends. Ladies and gentlemen, like everything with them, it depends," Biden said. "It depends on what day you find these guys."Romney accuses Obama of presiding over a weakening in US influence abroad, but he has to assure voters he is a credible alternative to the president on the world stage. The former Massachusetts governor's July trip to London, Jerusalem and Poland was marked by missteps.Libya attack The two men at their second debate last week clashed bitterly over Libya, a preview of what is to come in today's debate.They argued over Obama's handling of the attack last month on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in which Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed.The Obama administration first labeled the incident a spontaneous reaction to a video made in the United States that lampooned the Prophet Mohammad.Later, it said it was a terrorist assault on the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks.This shifting account, and the fact that Obama went on a campaign trip the day after the attack, has given Romney ammunition to use at the Florida debate."The statements were either misleading by intention or they were misleading by accident. Either way, though, he's got to get to the bottom of this," Romney adviser Dan Senor said on NBC's "Today" show.'Leading from behind' Obama and his allies charge that Romney exploited the Benghazi attack for political points while officials were still accounting for the wellbeing of US diplomats.Regarding foreign policy overall, Obama's allies accuse Romney of relying on generalities and platitudes."It is astonishing that Romney has run for president for six years and never once bothered to put forward a plan to end the war in Afghanistan, for example, or to formulate a policy to go after al Qaeda," US Senator John Kerry, the Democrats' 2004 presidential nominee, wrote in a memo released by the Obama campaign on Monday.Romney has promised to tighten the screws over Iran's nuclear program and accused Obama of "leading from behind" as Syria's civil war expands.He also has faulted Obama for setting up a politically timed exit from the unpopular Afghanistan war, and accused him of failing to support Israel, an important ally in the Middle East.The Republican challenger is likely to bring up a New York Times report from Saturday that said the United States and Iran had agreed in principle to hold bilateral negotiations to halt what Washington and its allies say is a plan by Tehran to develop nuclear weapons.The 90-minute debate, moderated by Bob Schieffer of CBS, will be divided into six segments: America's role in the world; the war in Afghanistan; Israel and Iran; the changing Middle East; terrorism; and China's rise.

'Fit' Fidel Castro appears in public

Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro has reappeared in public, meeting at a Havana hotel with a Venezuelan politician - quashing swirling rumours that the former leader was on his death bed.Castro - who led Communist Cuba for almost five decades before illness sidelined him - "is very well", Venezuela's former vice president Elias Jaua said on Sunday after meeting the bearded revolutionary icon.The 86 year-old Castro "is very well, very lucid", Jaua, a loyal supporter of leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, whose government keeps the cash-strapped Cuban regime afloat with cut-rate oil and aid - told reporters.After the five-hour meeting on Saturday, Castro accompanied Jaua back to the posh Hotel Nacional, where the visitor was staying, and then posed wearing a straw farmer's hat for pictures with hotel staff."We are going to have Fidel with us for a long time," said hotel manager Antonio Martinez, who posed with Castro for a picture, in which Jaua also flashes a broad smile.Martinez said the former Cuban president was accompanied by his wife Dalia Soto del Valle during the visit to the hotel.Jaua, who is currently a candidate for Miranda state governor for Venezuela's ruling party, said he spoke with Castro about agriculture, history and international politics.Castro, who rose to power after the 1959 revolution, ceded the presidency to his younger brother Raul, 81, in July 2006 for health reasons.Castro had not been seen in public since 28 March, when Pope Benedict XVI paid a landmark visit to Cuba, and again briefly the following week on 5 April with Chilean student leader Camila Vallejo. Serious intestinal surgeryThat fuelled rumours his health had worsened, that he was dead or on his death bed - particularly since Castro also had not published one of his usually frequent editorials in official state media since 19 June.In the past five years since falling ill after serious intestinal surgery, Castro has penned about 400 editorials as well as books about the revolution, and welcomed a few international leaders in private events.Last week, he sent a letter of congratulations to medical school graduates which was picked up in state media, but he did not appear in public at the time.With rumours about Castro's health rife abroad, one of his sons, photographer Alex Castro, said last week at an exhibit in Guantanamo of pictures he took of his father after 2010 that Castro "was in good shape, doing his daily activities, exercising, reading and taking care of himself".The re-election of Chavez, 58, in Venezuela this month likely brought huge sighs of relief in Havana. For now, it can continue to count on Caracas' critical economic support, as Cuba presses its quest for its own oil to fund the Americas' only Communist regime in the future.Meanwhile, President Raul Castro, sporting his general's uniform, was out early on Sunday at a polling station to cast his ballot in one-party municipal elections, state TV showed. Fidel Castro cast his vote by absentee ballot, as those with physical ailments are allowed to do.